Like Water on Charcoal
by flamingflight
Summary: Someone other than Harry kills Voldemort.
1. Ron Weasley

***

Like Water on Charcoal

Part I: Ron Weasley

***

Ron used to believe that there were only four kinds of people in the world. There was his family, his friends, his enemies, and everyone else. It really was that simple because he prided himself on being a simple lad. 

He grew up in a warm house with a warm family. He liked sports, was annoyed by his siblings, had friends, and defended the weak. In his mind, Ron saw dark black lines dividing people into areas that made them comfortable to be dealt with. It made things _not complicated_ and Ron needed that phrase so much, like water and air, that he didn't even know he needed it until it changed on him. Water which reminded him of her and he wondered why he didn't see it before.

The first time he saw her, all dark hair and dark eyes, he thought of water (which was so unlike her static energy). She reminded him of a droplet of water splashing onto a word-filled page and disrupting everything with its mere existence. 

He saw her standing in the doorway with her expectant gaze and he thought frantically, desperately, _Go away. Go away now before it's too late because we don't need you. It can be just him and me. Go away before I start to care. Go away before we lose everything._

In a bright, red train zooming towards unknown, anticipated areas that would one day be home, Rom opened his mouth to tell her this, but he stopped. He hesitated because he believed that he was being silly. She was just another girl after all, in robes like dark rooms without fear, and her mouth was not demanding something from him and her eyes were not looking him over and finding him lacking. But she did though.

She looked him over and Ron felt his poverty in her gaze. He felt the coldness of being in thick shadows and the suddenly sharp pain of fear that he might not be enough. Fear that he might not be enough for this girl with tarnished copper hair and slim hands.

His brothers taught him the importance of intuition, but he had paid them no heed.

The youngest Weasley boy stared at his rat defiantly and murmured in his mind, _You will not change anything. I refuse._

For awhile, things had been easier.

With angry words and mocking jokes, he tried to make her his enemy, tried to darken the borders in his mind and push her into a certain territory. _Move over there with the others, little girl._

But she hadn't stayed in her place. She had marched up and, with the help of a troll, blasted her way through the boundaries into an area she would be happier in. 

_Fine,_ the guard in Ron's mind demanded as though he was allowing her to do this instead of standing by helplessly. _You can stay in the friendship zone, but don't move again._ Ron could see her smile complacently in his mind as she waited for her next move.

The water spread and the lines began to blur.

***

_Not like Ginny or Fred or George or Percy or Bill or Charlie or mum or dad. Not family._

"What do you want from me?" screamed Ron in a windy field with tall, green grass the size of armies. 

He screamed and meant, _What can I possibly give you?_

"Of course _you_ wouldn't know," she spat disgustedly before stalking away, stomping the poor grass under her fast feet.

***

_Not like Harry. Not friends._

"My mother always said patience was my best virtue," she whispered confidentially in a warm common room after a long day of work. 

Harry laughed and Ron grinned.

"Then mine would be faith," Ron had added.

The fire cowered from her eyes and they darkened.

"That can be a weakness," she murmured and the two boys hadn't understood.

***

_Not like Malfoy. Not enemies._

"Please," he whispered in cluttered rooms after hours.

"No," she refused, but did not leave.

***

_Not like McGonagall or Hooch or Fleur. Not like people he knew, but didn't care to know further._

Ron admitted with flaming hair that seemed to have been trapped and tamed, "I don't know what you are to me."

"Just Hermione," she answered, like it was simple before saying, "Don't make this complicated."

***

Years and years standing motionless in front of a pair of intense eyes. Years of fear that he somehow wasn't enough. _Wouldn't she rather have Harry or Krum? Wouldn't she rather have a hero?_

Years of self inflicted pain until she grabbed his hands one day in a crowded common room and asked exasperatedly, "Will you just shut up and kiss me?"

And he did and it was perfect.

***

Ron should have seen her blur the lines. He should have noticed that it was wrong that she was water and that the once stable areas in his mind were now chaotic with the sounds of war. She was changing the rules and changing the story.

He should have seen it and maybe he did, but was helpless to do anything.

It didn't matter.

***

Tom Marvolo Riddle kept his eyes honed on Harry Potter as the Potter's stupid mudblood lay dead at his feet.

He didn't see the green light shooting from a redhead's wand.

***

She changed everything.


	2. Ginny Weasley

***

Like Water on Charcoal

Part II: Ginny Weasley

***

When she was a very little girl, Ginny stood beside her mother, her small, bright red head barely reaching the kitchen counter top. Ginny pouted angrily as she watched her mother's warm hands make quick movements with her wand. 

"I didn't mean to break it, mum," she murmured petulantly.

Her mother's own red hair gleamed.

"When you take something, whether it wanted you to take it or not, you become responsible for it and when you become responsible for something, you give it a part of yourself. It didn't matter that you didn't mean to break it, dear, but you did. Now, go apologize to Ron."

Ginny stalked out of that sunny, happy childhood and made her way into an impossible future.

***

He was _Harry Potter_ and he sat at her table and he talked with Ron and he _didn't understand what he meant_. It wasn't so much that he was a hero or that she used to play games where she and Harry Potter would go on adventures while her brothers looked on in envy. It wasn't that he was a hero.

It was that his hair was scruffy.

It was black and it stood out all over the place as though it had every right to inhabit the air that it contained. It was the way that he chuckled at Ron's stupid jokes and the way his hands moved when he ate. 

It was the fact that he was a legend made out of flesh and Ginny had never seen anything like him.

He was a kid, just like her and Ron, but he was _Harry Potter_ too - all at the same time. It was the idea of a gallant Prince raised under dusty stairs that kept Ginny awestruck and she should have known that it would be dangerous to fall so deeply engrossed in an idea rather than a person.

Because ideas could happen more than once and people couldn't.

***

Tom's hair was a shade lighter than Harry's. It was still black, but with an odd gray conotation to it, as though he had grown old much sooner than he should have. Ginny believed that the ideas and the ambitions his mind conjured forced a premature lightness in his hair, but his age had kept it from actively showing.

Ginny saw it and imagined that her hair was a shade more orange than the rest of her family's. Well, everyone except Percy that is. Percy had the same hair as her and she used to wonder, sometimes, if they were molded from different clay than the rest of the Weasley clan. She doesn't wonder that anymore because she knows that Percy's hair is light by choice.

Hers isn't and it feels less like a betrayal that way.

***

_What do you want, Ginny?_

She bit her bottom lip. Her hand trembled as the quill marked onto the page.

_I want to see you, Tom._

***

Ginny didn't have Ron's inferiority complex. She didn't see herself as some poor underling who was overshadowed by her brothers and their accomplishments. She was not the culmination of her brothers combined shadows. She was, instead, the thin line of invisible thread binding their shadows to them. Bill, who needed to run. Charlie, who needed to fly. Percy, who needed to know. Fred and George, who both needed to laugh. Ron, who needed to exist and _be._ Each of them believed that if they followed a certain means, it would bring them to a certain ends.

Ginny, who needed to know that someone who didn't have red hair could care for her.

Raised in a house of love, one begins to fear if the rest of the world was like that.

Ginny wished she had something as easy and simple to analyze as Ron's inferiority complex.

***

_I will do great things._

_Will you, Tom?_

_Yes._

_Harry did something great._

_I know._

_Do you think he'll be able to see me if I didn't have red hair?_

_I can't see your red hair, Ginny._

***

The Weasley family, whether they cared to know it or not, were very respected among the good wizards and witches. Their sons and daughters grew up to a certain expectation from society. As Draco Malfoy was expected to be haughty, elegant, and evil, the Weasley children were expected to grow up to be honest, honorable, and good.

Ginny Weasley was supposed to be the sweet little sister who would sit with their mother and wait for her brothers to come home from fighting. If they didn't come home, she was supposed to cry great tears for their lost, but still feel proud that they did a great deed. When she did, they would nod and say, "Ah yes, little Ginny. So fragile and yet so strong on the inside. Her brothers loved her so much." Good little girl with red braids and a path paved out for her.

She thought Harry knew what that was like. 

***

"You can't take without giving, Ginny," her mother had explained. "It's simply impossible. By simply taking, you're giving off a part of yourself."

Her mother had always been right.

***

Dumbledore gazed benevolently at her from behind his bespectacled glasses. Her small hands wrung at the edge of the hospital sheet and she dared not meet his eyes. She dared not tell him what she did.

_It was Voldemort_. _Not you._

They had told her this, friends and family alike, as though stating it would make it true. If everyone agreed then it must be true. Only, not everyone agreed.

_It was Voldemort_, Ginny thought desperately. _But it was me too._

"Was there anything else Tom made you do?" the Headmaster asked her gently.

She did not look at him. Instead, she looked at her hands, absent of quills, tearing at the sheets.

"No, Headmaster," she mumbled softly. "He did not make me do anything else."

***

_I want to keep a part of Harry, Tom. Just so I know if he ever leaves, that he was in my life once. Just so I know that I had known something great once._

_I understand, Ginny_.

Only he didn't.

***

The sound of tearing parchment only fed her already befuddled, fevered mind.

She only needed one page.

Ginny quickly crumpled it up and tasted bitterness as the paper and magic entered her mouth.

It was only one blank page out of dozens of blank pages, but it was enough.

*** 

They should have realized that people don't always follow the path set out before them. Look at Malfoy and what he did in order to keep Harry alive. Who knew?

Ginny Weasley was born in a family of heroes and she would be damned if she sat at home, waiting for her brothers.

***

He was alone in the towering room and when she entered, he turned blood eyes to her.

He sneered and she imagined she could see a resemblance to who he had once been. Would Harry change this much after he fulfilled his destiny and became the great hero they all imagined him to be?

"I'm sorry, Tom. I lied."

He didn't even deign to speak to her. Just aimed his wand at her and hissed out the words.

She smiled as she imagined the surprise blasting like ink across his parchment face.

_You were all about secrets and surprises, Tom. It's about time I had my own._

***

They found two bodies in the room.

One belonged to a very old man whose mother never told him that when you take, you also give.

The other belonged to Ginny Weasley, a lover of ideas.


	3. Narcissa Malfoy

***

Like Water on Charcoal

Part III: Narcissa Malfoy

***

Ever since she had been a child, Narcissa Black had never owned anything for more than two weeks. Her tall mother and foreboding father seemed to be more than happy to indulge their daughter's every whim as long as she stayed out of their sight and out of their hair. However, despite this easy attitude, there was one rule that was always enforced. If any of the children had not grown tired of a trinket or some new plaything by two weeks, it was to be thrown out by the servants and replaced with another copy. Narcissa never found a problem with that before. She grew tired of items long before then.

When she became Narcissa Malfoy, she expected the same treatment. She made sure that the one she married would have enough wealth to support her indulgences and the Malfoy name held much more to it than history and fear. It held an endless fortune. One that Narcissa was almost too happy to use. The castle changed decorations every few days. Items were bought and thrown away within hours of each other. It was a perfect life for Narcissa, the youngest daughter from a respectable family.

Everything was fine until a white-haired boy came into the world and attachment became much more than a word.

***

He called her Snow White.

With shiny, raven black hair down to her waist and skin so pale it was almost translucent, she supposed she did rather look the part. He called her Snow White and she wondered what she could call him? She didn't think anyone could fit a name to him. Names belonged to living things. He looked like someone had chiseled the most expensive marble into life and topped it all with woven snow. Only living things deserved names and perhaps he wasn't made out of marble because his name was Lucius and he was the storm that couldn't end.

The first time he saw her (twelve and haughty as she walked down the hallowed school floors), he had grabbed her arm (his own thirteen year old one small but full of infused power) and murmured, "Snow White. My Snow White."

Narcissa was a proud girl and she would have snatched her arm away with disgust snarling her mouth. She would have if he hadn't been Lucius Malfoy, who would have been powerful and feared even if he hadn't been born a Malfoy.

It had been Lucius Malfoy, though, and so she just smiled her ruby lips beautifully and assented, "Your Snow White."

There were no attachments at that time. There was only her parent's approval and her dress that was weaved out of unicorn hair. The dress that cost enough to feed more than thirty of the lesser wizards for a month. The one that she had lost somewhere in the giant wardrobe that was her life.

***

Bellatrix had been the wild one, screaming and screeching wildly around the manor as a child.

Andromeda had been the bad one, laughing and whispering with her Hufflepuff classmates,

Narcissa had been the good one.

They never spoke to each other growing up because there was simply no need to. In a lesser, poorer home, where the children could not buy their amusement and so had to befriend their siblings, the children argued and fought and stuck by each other. In their home, Bellatrix the crazy, Narcissa the perfect and Andromeda the unspeakable were just three girls growing up at the same time in the same area.

The only reason Narcissa would ever question the goodness of wealth would be because of this, her estrangement to the two people she should have been closest too. 

When Bellatrix had walked into Narcissa's home years after what was supposed to be their final parting, she was sporting a crazed grin.

"Hello, Narcissa," she had drawled slowly, taking pleasure in the fact that for once, perfect Narcissa was no longer the favorite. "My Lord called me here to be beside him. I'm sure your husband can relate the entire meeting afterwards."

Narcissa had just looked her nose down at the girl who should have held more than just contempt and spat, "You're treading dirt onto my floor, Bellatrix."

***

Bellatrix was contemptible, but Andromeda was not (despite her foolish actions).

Andromeda, with her romantic ideas and glaring dimples, could have been the one to explain to Narcissa what attachment meant. Andromeda hadn't cared enough, though, and Narcissa thinks that you don't have to be a Death Eater to be cruel and unfeeling. Andromeda had ignored her family until she turned eleven and arrived in Hogwarts, where she discovered that there were people who would take her into their arms and hold her there. Andromeda had not shown up at Narcissa's wedding.

Andromeda had not looked back on her seventeenth birthday as she walked away from the manor she grew up in.

Andromeda had not seen the little sister trembling white as snow behind the dark red curtains.

***

As she screamed into the bright ceiling of the hospital with the Healers all around her, Narcissa imagined her new baby. It would be a beautiful boy with her jet-black hair and Lucius's gray eyes. It would have the marble perfection of a Malfoy and the power of the world in it's hands. It would be something that would fit perfectly, like a piece of furniture, in it's large, silver nursery. It would be her new trinket of the moment.

Narcissa hadn't expected the wrinkled, red bundle with the tuft of shock white hair that was placed into her shaky arms. She hadn't anticipated the scowling, unsatisfied face or the small tiny fists hitting the air. Narcissa didn't lie to herself. Her baby was hideous.

Nonetheless, she had looked at the baby in awe and thought with a thumping heart as something new and inexplicable bloomed in the place that would have been her heart.

She murmured, "My little Draco," and thought, _What do you want from me?_

***

Since Draco's birth, Narcissa knew with a mother's intuition that she was the only one looking out for her child. 

Lucius had taken one look at her little Draco and said in a clipped voice, "I'll see him again when he begins to look like a Malfoy." Narcissa had sighed, but hadn't expected any more from him. 

She knew that one day, her little bundle with odd white hair would grow up to be the Malfoy heir and that there were many, many people who wanted that title. She knew, without a doubt, that there would be a certain people in his school that would despise him and many who would revere him. She even briefly wished that the sorting hat would make a mistake and send him into Gryffindor or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. It won't matter who his family is in any of those houses. One only needs to look at Andromeda to confirm that.

Narcissa knew all this just as she knew that she was going to do everything in her power to ensure that Draco outlive her. 

***

Her mother had taught her that attachments were not good. 

Her mother had lost all three of her daughters.

***

_Mum,_

Harry Potter is such a stupid, ugly... 

Mum, 

You won't believe what Potter did today in...

Mum, 

Stupid arrogant Potter and his stupid...

Mum,

Potter had the nerve to...

Narcissa knew her son better than anyone else. She knew how to read between the spaces left by her son's words. She knew that what Draco wanted most was for her to write back after one of his letters and say, "I give in, Draco. You win. We have kidnapped Harry Potter and you shall soon get him wrapped in green and silver ribbons. Happy (early) Birthday, darling."

Draco was allowed to keep anything of his as long as he wanted.

He was allowed to have anything he wanted to keep.

Harry Potter was the first thing he could not have.

***

She should have known that something was wrong when Lucius entered the bedroom that morning. His face was apologetic and she knew enough to know that he was never sorry about anything.

"Yes?" she inquired fearfully.

"Narcissa," he said slowly as he sat at the edge of the bed. "There was an attack at Hogwarts last night. It was perfectly orchestrated. I _commanded_ him to stay in his room and stay out of Potter's business, but he wouldn't listen. Draco got caught in the foray. The Dark Lord was aiming for Potter and Draco was in the way. I wasn't there. There was nothing I could - "

By this time, Narcissa had already grabbed her coat and ran to her fireplace.

Lucius stared at her behind his damned Malfoy eyes.

"Snow - " he began.

"No," Narcissa whispered harshly. It was the first time she had refused him anything.

Green flames shot up and engulfed her.

***

He was lying unconscious on the bed. His chest was barely moving.

"Your son is in a position that many of the other students are in, Mrs. Malfoy. He did not receive the full blast of whatever the spell is, we have not yet determined, and so did not die. However, he is in a comatose state and we do - "

"Will he wake up?" Narcissa asked the nurse woman, her eyes still on her son.

"We believe so, yes. The situation remains that You-Know-Who is probably aiming on somehow finishing the spell off - " 

Narcissa walked out of the room.

***

_Headmaster Dumbledore,_

Please take care of Draco for me until he wakes up. Give him to Andromeda and tell her that she is the only one I would trust with him. Give him my note when he wakes up. 

- Narcissa Malfoy

***

She knew where he was because her husband did not keep secrets from her.

He stood in the giant dungeon with Lucius and three of his other Death Eaters. They all looked at her as she entered and closed the door.

"Narcissa, what are you doing here? Get out!" Lucius commanded and she could see his eyes flicker. He was afraid for her. How touching.

"No, Lucius," a voice hissed and Narcissa stared fearlessly into red eyes.

"Do you want to kill me?" he taunted and the other Death Eaters shrieked. One of them was Bellatrix.

"No," Narcissa answered. 

"Then what are you going to do?" 

She looked at him and answered with all the power born into a Black, "I'm going to keep you from harming my son again."

***

There was a spell that Dumbledore taught her, the day before she graduated from Hogwarts and married Lucius. It binds a place. When it is cast, the place she is in is trapped and barred. No one may leave and no one may enter. The spell is irrevocable and her death seals it.

Voldemort may know how to cheat death, but even he falls to the ravages of time.

***

_Draco,_

I can't give you Harry Potter, but I can give you something almost as good. I can give you a chance. Take it, darling.

- Narcissa

P.S. When you go to live with your Aunt Andromeda, ask her nicely where the old family albums are. When she gives them to you, look for a single picture. It is of me in a white dress in the mud beside a laughing boy. I look about three in the picture. I old Andromeda to burn it, but I know she hasn't. Take that picture and give it to Harry Potter. Tell him, "That's my mum and her cousin, Sirius, before they realized they had chosen different paths in life. If they hadn't, you and I could have grown up beside each other." I can give you this much, my darling Draco. 


	4. Hermione Granger

***

Like Water on Charcoal

Part IV: Hermione Granger

***

Before she went to a Wizarding school, Hermione Granger was educated at a Muggle one and her years there taught her a very important lesson. It taught her that she was very different from everyone else, not just because of her magical abilities (which she hadn't known about yet) but because her mind functioned differently than everyone else's. Her thought processes differed greatly from the other children.

She had been eight (three years before she began to grasp just how different she was) and the teacher had left the classroom. All the students were either working or speaking to their friends and needless to say, Hermione was doing the latter, when a rather large rodent entered the room. Everyone had screamed and scrambled to the back of the classroom, the location farthest away from where the rodent had situated itself (which was the front of the classroom).

While all the other children thought, _Who's going to get the teacher_, Hermione had thought in resignation, _I suppose it'll have to be me._

Though she was just as frightened and disgusted as the others, the little girl that would one day grow up to be a powerful witch marched up the the furry rodent, grabbed it by the tail and threw it out the window.

Hermione was different from everyone else and she didn't realize what that meant until much later.

***

Certain things were meant for certain people.

Hermione had decided long ago that friendship was not something that was fit for her. She watched it happen to other people and knew that it was not something that would fit her very well. It was fine, though, because she had other things to compensate. She had books, tombs of knowledge that stood on shelves of dust, to read and delve into and she had information to gain. Friendship was not something that would be able to fit into her already cluttered life.

Hermione honestly believed this for eleven years.

***

She had opened the compartment door with a confidance that could not be learned and what she saw briefly stopped her heart.

Later, Hermione would lie in bed and think for hours about the reasoning behind it. She would ponder how it came to be that it was so perfect that they should all come upon each other on that train. With the moon as the only witness to her night reverie, she finally decided upon the explanation. She should have came upon it sooner simply because it was so similar to her observation about friendship. Harry Potter had needed something and she and Ron was there to satisfy that need. They were his reward. It was Fate's way of balancing. _I'm sorry that your father and mother had to die and that your childhood had to be taken away, but here are two to compensate for that. Here are two who are willing to love you without judgement._

Hermione had opened that compartment door and saw two boys waiting, both thin and rather scraggly, waiting for a third to finish their tight triangle.

She should have closed the door and walked away, but she didn't.

Instead, she took one step closer and thought happily, _I suppose it'll have to be me._

***

If Harry's home was the sky and Ron's was the Great Hall, then Hermione liked to believe that hers was the library.

The old Hogwarts library with its tall, dusky shelves like arms that seemed to embrace her as she stood between them. There was a comfort in the library that she knew she could never explain to either of her friends. It was the idea that if there was a question, then there was an answer. It was the idea that if there was an answer then it could be found if one only looked hard enough.

It took Hermione years of falling asleep on top of dozens of books before she realized that if you didn't know there was a question, you could never find the answer.

***

Harry soared and twisted through the sky and Hermione wondered, _Do you find your answers there?_

With Ron to her right and Ginny to her left, Hermione watched him and felt a heavy, metal chain wrap around her heart. Her eyes burned without reason.

When Harry landed in front of the ones he valued, a grin of pure joy on his face, Hermione felt the chain loosen and an almost unbearable relief came over her. Harry smiled at them, but when his eyes landed on Hermione, they dimmed slightly. He understood her fear even if he didn't fully know he did.

"You were great! The Slytherins won't stand a chance," exclaimed Ron.

_You're going to leave us, aren't you, Harry?_

"Yeah, you were," Ginny agreed. "I wish I could fly so wonderfully."

_When did you come upon this decision? Was it after first year when you realized that you could never have what you wanted most? Was it after you met a boy that could have been you deep inside a chamber with a monster? Was it after you realized that no matter how many wonderful things you did, it didn't matter because you couldn't change the world? Was it after you held a dying boy in your arms and wondered what it would feel like if it had been either Ron or me in your arms?_

Or maybe.

"What do you think, Hermione?" Harry asked her.

"I think you were wonderful, Harry, but we better get inside before we get caught up in a storm," Hermione replied with hands that gestured towards a cloudy, thundering sky.

"Of course," they all agreed because it was Hermione and because she was right.

_Was it Sirius?_

Was it his death that made you decide you will die before your friends?

They didn't manage to get inside the safe haven of Hogwarts before it began to rain.

***

Hermione's hair had a force of it's own.

Sometimes Ron would, unconsciously, reach out a hand towards it and have Hermione snap, "What are you doing, Ron?"

He would pull his hand back swiftly as though he was shaken awake and a horrible red blush would come over his face.

Her hair had a force of it's own and Hermione didn't want Ron to fall and die in the brambles of her jungle.

***

After Dumbledore announced the news in the horrible light of the Great Hall, he advised all the students to return home. All the faces (even the Slytherins) held the same expression of terror as the most impossible of impossible events happened. Hermione stared at her plate and refused to meet any of their pleading glances. 

Professor McGonagall had pulled her and Ron aside earlier that day and told them the latest changes in the war.

Beside her, Ron sat mute (he had not said a word since that morning), and Hermione knew that she will have to be the one to hold his sobbing form later that night after the shock wore off.

Underneath the table, their hands were linked.

***

The tear streaks down McGonagall's face should have tipped them off, but it didn't.

Hermione knew that something devastating was about to fall upon them and so she commanded, "Take my hand, Ron."

He blushed and tried to form a question.

"Just take it, Ron," she pleaded and thought, _You'll have to lean on me from now on. I don't think Harry can support you anymore._

He took her hand and the little exchange between them caused tears to wash Professor McGonagall's eyes again.

She told them.

Hermione closed her eyes and felt Ron's tall form slump onto her.

She had anticipated this, but she hadn't expected it to hurt this much.

She wanted to say, "It's going to be okay. It isn't the end of the world," but she didn't want to lie.

***

The question hung in the air.

It was wrapped in the stone walls and slid with the moving stairs. 

The students whispered it as they packed.

The portraits murmured it as they waited.

_Who's going to kill Voldemort now?_

She laid on the Quidditch pitch as the phantom of a flying boy haunted her and thought, _I suppose it'll have to be me._

***

The fire flickered angrily in the common room that last night. Hermione was huddled in thick blankets as she watched it from her perch on the chair.

Ron stepped in front of the fireplace and he begged something of her.

_I can't, Ron. Maybe in another time, but not now. It would feel like too much of a betrayal for us to be happy when Harry's - when Harry can't be happy._

She stared at him and whispered, "Take me flying, Ron."

He could give her that much.

***

The world slept underneath her as Hermione hugged Ron's body tight on that broom zooming off into the sky that final night.

_Did you find your answers, Harry?_

***

In another time, Dumbledore had asked her, "Do you know what you will give up?"

"Yes," she answered resolutely.

***

The hourglass tilted in her shaking hand.

The world changed.

***

She didn't want to see an eleven year old boy with black hair that reminded her too much of Harry. She didn't want to see the wand that would one day kill the ones she loved and so Hermione waited patiently outside the Slythering common room during the sorting. Harry's invisibility cloak protected her just like it's owner used to do. She entered with the first years.

She waited till the small boy that was Tom Marvolo Riddle fell asleep until she held the wand over his small form.

Whispered, "_Avada Kedavra,_" and felt the world shift around her.

***

Hermione opened the compartment door and was greeted with the sight of a boy talking animatedly to his group of adoring friends.

"- then Sirius pushed the broom and everyone thought I was going to fall off, but - yes?"

His eyes were crystal green and his forehead was smooth.

"Have any of you seen a toad? A boy named Neville lost his," she explained.

They all shook their heads and he suggested, "Why don't you ask the people in the next compartment?"

Hermione nodded and closed the door.

"Who was that?"

"Oh don't worry about her, Harry. She's some know-it-all first year. I met her going to the loo and she caught me up telling me about all the books she read over the summer."

"Oh. Anyway, Sirius pushed me off the broom and - "

Hermione opened the next door and saw three heads of red and one other boy.

"Excuse me, the boy next door told me -"

"Ah yes, Harry Potter the Quidditch Star," one red-haired boy, a twin, snorted.

"I'd be a Quidditch star too if my dad and his friends had me riding the newest model broom since I could walk," the boy that did not have red hair commented.

"These walls are not thick enough," one twin said.

"We were subjected to his bragging all ride," the other supplemented.

The tallest boy turned to Hermione and asked, "Well, what did you want?"

Hermione sniffed indignantly, but explained the toad situation. They all denied seeing any amphibians or pets. She thanked them and closed the door.

Hermione walked away.

***

Hermione Granger knew what she was giving up.

She was choosing the lesser of two evils.


End file.
